


a tremendous hum

by verulam (krynon)



Series: borderlands shortfic! [5]
Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Desert Siren AU, Deserts, Fingering, M/M, Mind Control, Singing, Sirens, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:19:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Run to the desert, you will be all that you need to be." </i>
</p>
<p>Rhys is a desert siren, and he feels sand more keenly than the blood in his veins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a tremendous hum

**Author's Note:**

> Content: Mind Control, Mythology, Trans Siren Rhys, Hypnosis, Singing, Fingering, Possibly Surreal Themes,
> 
> Recommended listening [here,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIynGX4eXCs) courtesy of [Lucy!](http://donotchoosesidesyet.tumblr.com)
> 
> An unbeta'd drabble. Let me know if you spot anything off!

The first night, Rhys has no idea what to do.

It’s _freezing._ The Oracle had said, had _mentioned,_ but when Rhys had heard ‘desert’, he’d heard _‘warmth’_ , and now it was well past midnight. Rhys is willing to admit he miscalculated.

He simply hadn’t anticipated… well.

Anything, really.

Rhys stumbled into a lot of things, these days, and the rumble of the sands was a tripping block in itself. It was almost a swarm and a pool at once, delicate soft water dripping at his toes one moment and then a _beast_ the next, butting heads at the horizon in ways Rhys could never see before.

Lilith, when he meets her, is hardly sympathetic. She shrugs, and scowls at him, sand pulling around her like some odd cloak. “Well,” she says, with the ring of the sand not quite absent from her tone, “You _asked_ for it.”

Which, well. That wasn’t _quite_ fair, given that he _didn’t_ ask for it. But he understands her point, and he understands that Lilith’s path to the sands had been _very_ different to his own.

A lot about Lilith was _very_ different to himself- _his_ scars were _chosen_ , cut along his chest in a way that makes her scowl. He almost thinks she’s judging him for it, until she bares her shoulders and the scratched out pattern-words make it clear she’s just _bitter._

Sometimes Rhys feels _sorry_ for Lilith, but before he knows it she’s calling out curses at him across the dunes and it’s all Rhys can do to not upend the sand beneath her.

But, anyway.

The first night, Rhys nearly freezes, and he’s saved by a _desert-goer,_ of _all things._

(In all honesty, Rhys has been a Desert-Siren for so short of a time that it should still feel uncomfortable on his tongue, the roll of ‘us-versus-them’, but instead it fits just-so with the steady stream of dirt and wind beneath his feet.)

The desert-goer is still desert-kept, even _years_ later. He simply does not want to leave. Vaughn, as it turned out, had simply no reason to go back, and had not _planned_ to go back.  

(Rhys mentions it once, that if Vaughn wanted to go, he could. Vaughn had looked at him seriously, splashed his feet in the water, and then smiled softly.

“I think I’m okay here, Rhys.” And then there’s no more said about it.)

***

Rhys stumbles across the sand on feet that feel _far_ too much, suddenly. There’s water, pumping between those few plants that have spurred up from the sand, and tiny scurrying feet across the land a thousand miles away. He doesn’t know of any Sirens beyond Lilith, but they must be there, because he feels footsteps that bellow down into the depths of the earth and then back up again. There’s… they feel _cold,_ almost, too distant, too dry, too _absent-_ it’s nothing like what he’d been promised.

“Leave it behind,” the Oracle had said. “Escape to the Warmth.” Rhys would laugh if he could, but the cold is creeping into his tongue. He’s never felt colder in his _life._

The moon is full in the sky and the plains of sand feel infinitely desolate against it. The walls of the desert have never felt further from him, and the sting at his fingers almost _hurts,_ now, creeping up as the vestiges of heat in the floor leeches away.

It’s a snap every time he makes a step, stumbles back and forth over the dunes.  The ground slips beneath his feet and before Rhys knows it he’s _snarling_ at it, because- it was meant to be _easier_ here, easier to move and exist and _work,_ and here he was losing his grip on the earth and he can’t _bear_ it. It’s a grapple at his shoulders, and he sinks down again and _again;_ the sand bites vicious patterns into his knees, and before he knows it his legs won’t even push him _up_ again, the shift beneath them just- it’s too _much,_ far too much, rolling and rumbling underneath him. It’s every movement of the sand, every grain- it’s _all_ of it, and it slips around his toes and de _fies_ him, and he-

God, he’s fucking crying. It’s well past midnight, Lilith’s rumble is nowhere he can feel, and he’s crying at the shift of the sand.

“Um!” He-

Rhys whirls around. A person, a human- short, masculine, nervous, stepping from foot to foot and tapping their toes, and-

Well. Rhys really should have heard them coming.

“Um! Uh,” They say again, and this time when Rhys takes a few deep breaths it’s a controlled kind of desperation. “Um, would- excuse me, would you like some help?”

And Rhys thinks: ‘oh, for the sake of the _gods,_ ’ because absolutely _not,_ a Siren does _not_ need help from a _desert-goer._

When Rhys tries to stand, there’s a brief second where he actually rises. Before he knows it though, the sand scowls and he falls. When he hits the ground, the desert-goer must hear it as a faint ‘oof’. Rhys, on the other hands, feels it as a _slam,_ an echo across the dunes, an answering concerned rumble from a thousand miles away that goes _pointedly_ ignored, a billion decibels of crumbling ruin as his knees hit the sand and he has to resist the urge to wail.

So when the desert-goer steps forward, and puts out a hand, Rhys takes it.

(That night, it transpires that Vaughn is running, same as Rhys. Vaughn was _far_ more prepared than he was, too, warmth and coats and food packed into a bag that should be _far_ too heavy for the smaller man to lift.

Come morning, it turns out that when the sun came up, the Siren thing worked a _lot_ better.)

“Woah,” mumbles Vaughn, and Rhys steps out of their tiny shelter and into the sunlight and _breathes._ “Holy shit, dude. You solar powered, or something?”

Rhys smiles and nudges at the sand beneath his toes. (A long way away, Lilith scowls in his direction.) “Something like that,” he mumbles, and tries his _hardest_ to keep the sand out of his voice, but-

It’s-

There aren’t any words for it, not really. Power, indivisible and intrinsic, sat on his ribs and lungs and woven in his vocal chords, a symphony in every breath. It’s- choir, almost, every grain of sand something _buzzing,_ in his veins and _singing._ He-

He doesn’t mean to, is what he’s saying. But when he feels Lilith launch into song across the dunes, and further off _scores_ of Sirens sing, the sun rises, and he-

He-

Rhys sings with the force of all he’s got. The sun sits in him and he _revels,_ feels it, hears it under his skin and firing in his brain, and- before he knows it there’s Vaughn, and Rhys loses track of exactly what he’s saying because Vaughn looks-

His eyes are drooped, mouth open, hands wide at his side and gaze filled with something like _adoration._

Rhys would be unsettled if he weren’t so busy throwing his head back and _yelling,_ and at this point he’s not even sure _what._ Prayers, maybe, but lyrical, a song or a hymn or something entirely less coherent, and he catches Lilith in a far-off chorus, answering him, and before he knows it he can hear it _all,_ singing with him, following a song he doesn’t know but _soaring_ anyway.

Vaughn takes a step forward, outstretches his hands, fingers and toes splayed across the air and sand and Rhys can _feel_ it, sees it as clear as the places where the other Sirens keep their Oases, sees fingertip-fingerprint-palm and _life,_ and when Vaughn says please Rhys kisses him without a thought.

(It isn’t what he’d expected. Lilith had said that Siren Kisses were like fire. Instead, this is chaste and warm and joyous, and when Vaughn tips back to stumble onto the sand, it’s all Rhys can do to laugh.)

And so Vaughn is Rhys’ first desert-kept.

***

Rhys meets other Sirens, eventually. Lilith’s static Oasis was not the norm- not because she was odd, but because there _was_ no norm. Every one was different, and Rhys notes the difference between them with curiosity kept quiet beneath his songs.

There’s Maya, shifting sands and waters and “Freedom”. Her oasis is never in the same place twice, and singing with her is _easy._ When Lilith calls him ‘child’, Maya calls her something in sand-tongue that Rhys doesn’t understand, but Lilith never does it again.

Steele does not talk to him. She sings songs of battle, and her voice is drum-beats against the floor, and Rhys finds himself half cowering and half incensed to _war_ when she’s near. Rhys is never close enough to see her oasis. He imagines it would be filled with weaponry and empowered aggressors anyway, so he doesn’t feel too bad about it.

Lilith informs him that there are two more, somewhere. According to her, six Desert Sirens sat on the dunes. He does not know their names, and Lilith does not either, and though he never asks the others he knows that there is some strong-deep part of the chain of them all that’s missing.

When they all sang together, only the four of them, they make the very stars themselves shake in their beds. With six, Rhys is certain they could be brought to their knees.

***

Rhys’ oasis is… different to Lilith’s. Certainly it’s different to _Maya’s-_ Rhys chooses his spot and that is exactly where he stays.

Rhys’ oasis is warm and well shaded and has the clearest water of any oasis he’s seen, though that might just be him projecting. The oasis is home, really, and before long it’s home to more than he and Vaughn. Rhys collects his desert-kept, and he has no intention of letting them go.

***

This desert-goer is _different._

_Jack_ is different.

Power thrummed, bow-taught, built like stone and curved iron. Jack seems to be built of the things that Rhys feels more easily than he can feel _himself_ , these days, but Jack remains _infuriatingly_ elusive. He’s cocky no matter _how_ many times he’s kissed, no matter _how_ many times Rhys sings. Jack is beating Rhys at a game he hadn’t even known he’d been _playing._

Jack speaks in tongues about capitalism and victory, and about guns and water and corporations. Rhys, of course, does the sensible thing, and kisses the words right out of his mouth.

Needless to say, it is _nothing_ like kissing the others. It’s not like kissing Vaughn, sweet-soft, or Yvette, hot and dry, and it is most _certainly_ nothing like Sasha or Fiona.

Jack, when Rhys presses their lips together for the first time, does exactly what Rhys expects for all of about a second. He closes his eyes, droops down, and Rhys feels power in his veins and the world in his skin, and then- then Jack _stops_ doing what Rhys expects.

He _growls._ And then Jack’s arms are up and around him and there’s a leg between his thighs, and he’s being kissed so hard he sees _stars_ behind his eyelids, swirling and the wet-heat of Jack’s mouth something _beyond_ all of this, different and separate and _uncomfortably_ good. Rhys sings: “Oh,”  and Jack buzzes around him, arms tight and lips against his own and tongue deep in his mouth- Rhys swirls them both together, feels the universe in his chest and kisses back so _hard,_ so hard, presses himself close until he can get them no closer.

The sand sings and Jack’s presence somehow makes Rhys sing _louder._

Jack’s fingertips are pressed _harsh_ at his shoulders, one hand buried in his hair, and Rhys clutches at the chest of this desert-goer with desperation and sand and a thousand different anthems and-

(There’s a snap of Lilith at the back of his head, concern from somewhere in the south, and Rhys frowns.)

(Whoops.)

When Jack pauses for breath and looks for all the world like he’s just had a spiritual experience, Rhys takes a quick gasp of air.

Then Rhys sings, and by the time he’s done, Jack is on his knees.

(Rhys sings of something like love. It isn’t love, because love most certainly didn’t feel so much like battle, but it’s _something_ like it. Jack falls to the floor with a soft thump and Rhys has the sand catch him gently.)

Staring from the ground, eyes drooped but mouth smirking, Jack looks a lot less intimidating. The truck he’d arrived in sits only a few feet away, and with his muscles softened under Rhys’ touch, it probably wouldnt be a problem to just… send him home.

The thing is though, when Rhys threads a hand through his hair, Jack looks up and smirks. He smiles like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Rhys…. Well.

Rhys is becoming kind of known for bad decisions.

(Rhys lets him stay.)

***

The desert-kept have shelter. It’s a benefit of being a stationary siren, and one of the better things about having desert-kept that stay for months instead of hours.

Apparently, Lilith’s desert-kept complain about privacy and solitude and how alone time was a “basic human requirement”. It’s a testament to how long Rhys has been a part of this desert that he doesn’t quite know _why,_ when Rhys hasn’t had a day without sand-speak in a _very_ long time.

However, when Jack stands in the middle of the oasis, and water pours off him in a way that makes him catch the sun, Rhys suddenly understands.

He doesn’t even need to _say_ anything. He mumbles out a soft sigh of a melody, and suddenly his desert-kept flee in droves.

Jack, of course, looks up at him and smiles.

Rhys is once again reminded that ‘ _this desert-goer is different’,_ and before he knows it he’s threading his toes across the sand, step after step and padding over the pool of water.

Jack, Rhys reminds himself, is _different._

Beyond that, beyond the final step into the water and the distant croon of the sand in his blood, Rhys just gives in. He recognises dimly that it was a _terrible_ decision, but…

It’s one more step and Rhys’ hands are on him, and Jack’s arms come around him with something so tight and powerful he might as well be some kind of _titan,_ and the way there’s heat at his tongue and wet warmth at his lips makes him _croon._

It’s not a song he’s ever sung before. It’s certainly not one he’s ever been _taught._ But there’s heat and the slip slide of Jack’s tongue on his, and then-

Jack’s legs nudge his own open, and he’s being pushed against a tree or a wall or something, but it doesn’t matter because Jack is ghosting smiles into his neck and _nipping,_ and there’s startled melodies dripping from his tongue that he’s never even imagined and- _gods,_ Rhys has got the thrum of sand at his feet and the pulsing drum of Jack everywhere else, and _this desert goer is different,_ and Rhys is _reeling._

Every touch is wet-tinged or sand-strung, either soft and slippery against him or harsh enough to make him keen, something deep and warm in his gut and _pressure_ at him, Jack’s knee pushed up into him, wet and hot and-

God, Jack is-

_Pressure,_ water around them and Jack’s hands at his sides and then Jack’s _fingers_ of all things, ghosting over him and into him and _across_ him, repetitive and- and-

Rhys isn’t even sure when the murmured melodies become symphonies, but before he knows it Jack’s eyes are hazy and the pressure of his cock at Rhys’ thigh is twitching, fingers a drumming rhythm across him, flicking and stroking and Rhys can’t help it as his voice climbs, Jack’s breaths something caught between snarls and sighs against his neck. He’s- god, if Rhys had known he could do this he would have done it _ages_ ago. He’s shuddering, a match for Rhys despite being untouched, twitching from Rhys’ voice alone.

Rhys laughs, ghosts a hand over his chest- he drags his hand down, down under the water, and cups at his cock with a hand that might be reverent if Rhys wasn’t still singing out desperate hymns of _“Jack._ ” Jack groans, slips his fingers deeper, harder and before Rhys knows it it’s white hot and building higher in his abdomen, buzzing and coiling, _hot_ in his guts.

Jack crooks his finger, and Rhys’ eyes roll up, the noise he makes _far_ beyond human. He shakes so hard that he’s concerned that the desert could shake with him. It’s some kind of _thunderous_ crescendo, burnt at the edges and _bright._

He shudders out his song and falls back, boneless.

“ _Oh,”_ he says, because. Well. He hasn’t had an orgasm since _well_ before the desert.

He’s _certainly_ never had an orgasm whilst _singing._

Jack shudders ahead of him but holds his gaze. He makes a strangled noise, and Rhys leans forward. “Did you… did you come just from my voice?”

Jack doesn’t say anything, and kisses him instead.

Rhys counts that as a victory.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr, [here!](http://verulamfic.tumblr.com)


End file.
